Cassandra Clare – Lord of Shadows

Lord of Shadows

“Lord of Shadows” is the second book of “The Dark Artifices” trilogy, which follows the story of the main characters Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn and the Blackthorn family in general. If you haven’t read “Lady Midnight” or any other book from Shadowhunters universe, go read it and then come back, because I can’t write this without spoilers!

Review full of spoilers begins! You’ve been warned!

So the book started where “Lady Midnight” left us and we’re seeing how the relationship between Mark and Emma works, which don’t work good for me! Let me tell ya – this book was full of love polygons, I’m not even sure how to explain my feelings about all of them.

Emma and Mark are pretending to be in love with, but all I was able to see from their relationship was friendship. How can Julian believes that Emma is in love with his brother after all that happened in the first place? He knows her all her life and can’t clearly say when she’s lying to him. This was so annoying. But good thing is he was still there to help her – they’re parabatai, right?

Clearly I can’t explain anything right, so I’m going again to this structure I used in my review of “Lady Midnight”.

Emma + Cortana:
In this book Emma goes beyond her limits. She was warned, but she still wasn’t able to keep calm in the Unseelie Court. Most of all, she can’t hide her feelings for Julian and it drives me crazy every time I remember some of the things she was doing. Like, why she was paired with Julian every single time? And why they both had to stay in Malcolm’s home when they just can go back to the Institute? I knew it that something will happen if they stay alone and it did. It’s obvious they have to be together and as this thing with the exile is not going to work, because of certain death, I’m wondering what is going to happen in the next book. Other thing about Emma is Cortana. How come this sword is so powerful? It’s just so strange that Emma was able to kill one of the Seven Riders, which cannot be killed. And then she also broke the Mortal Sword… What does that mean? What’s going to happen with the Shadowhunters without one of the three mortal instruments? I can’t understand.

Julian:
The ruthless character of them all. He was so so good during all this time, and now we see that he actually don’t care about anything in terms to protect his family and Emma. I can’t even… It’s so difficult even to write about him.

Mark + Christina + Kieran:
This relationship was so interesting. I’m so glad that I was able to read more about Kieran and about the Faerie lands in general. I’m divided with this pairing – I don’t know what I prefer and to be honest I would enjoy the three of them to be together. The binding spell between Mark and Christina was some kind of a sign that they will be together, but then what will happen with Kieran then when it is clear that he cannot go back to the Hunt? I don’t know what am I supposed to think.

Gwyn + Diana:
This is probably my most favorite pairing. I wasn’t a big fan of Diana in the first book and now knowing her story everything makes sense. And when she explained everything about to Gwyn and his reaction – it was priceless. I can’t stop thinking about what can happen between them and I clearly want to read more.

Ty + Kit + Livvy:
I loved this three being together. I loved the friendship between Kit and Ty and I wasn’t sure what is going to happen, but right there when Kit starts to talk about Ty and the fact that he was the one, who actually understood what’s happening with Ty made me think about them as a couple and I want to see it. I’m not sure what to write about Livvy – she was so brave and stoic and I loved her through all the events in the book and I still can’t believe that she had to die. Why Cassandra, why did you do that to us? It wasn’t fair. And to see all the devastation of the Blackthorn… my heart cried, a lot!

This book is so intense and so many things had happened. I loved that appearance of Jessamine and Magnus and Alec. It was interesting to visit London Institute again, this really added to the story. And the end of the book was so devastating – I was so broken and cried my heart out. When Robert died I was so shocked, then Livvy and finally when Magnus wasn’t good and Alec took care of him. Why all the things at once? And the Cohort and the stupid Zara – I don’t even want to write about her. It’s just too much.

I can continue write so much about this book and still wouldn’t be able to cover all the feels it gave me. This is probably the best book Cassie Clare ever wrote and I can’t imagine how am I supposed to wait 2 full years for the final book.